Reviews

I read and review both historical fiction and non-fiction, but also enjoy biographies, crime and some contemporary fiction. Please note that unless stated that I have received these books directly from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review, I either purchase my own copies or source them from my local library service.​Links to Amazon or Booktopia are only for further reference

This book is one that I had been meaning to read ever since it was first published in 2006. There was something about the name and the enchanting original cover that appealed to me, and it hinted at one of those wonderful drop-out escape novels that tend to be popular with women readers of a certain age.

Based on the real-life experiences of the author, an Australian journalist, apart from the gloomy undertone with two family deaths from cancer coming one after the other, the first half of the book is enjoyable in the way of that other more famous and similar book (Eat, Pray, Love) and is about a journey of discovery and self-fulfillment. Also, because of her lovely descriptions of life on idyllic Pittwater in the northern suburbs of Sydney, I was prepared to put up with her self-preoccupation, her name-dropping and career boasts, as well as her scatty decisions in house-buying and an obviously headed-nowhere relationship with a married jerk.

When cancer strikes her this time, the sympathy kicks up a few notches but within a couple of pages it plunges again when she decides to buy two puppies and then lets them run amok in an ecologically sensitive area on the edge of a national park, endangering the wildlife and driving her neighbours mad with lunatic behaviour and their incessant barking when she is away. Anyone who is fighting serious illness and takes on dogs without being able to look after or train them properly is irresponsible in the extreme.

Disappointed, I struggled through to the end, barely able to tolerate her chit-chatty dinner parties with the Sydney “chardonnay set” and amiable boofy blokes shunting her furniture and teaching her about boats. I wasn’t too convinced either about the nobility of the other woman neighbour, another cancer victim, who seems to be pushing her husband into the author’s arms.

Two stars only, for the pre-puppies part of the book and the lyrical descriptions of Pittwater.